[Gazzataf]

Hi
I wonder if any of you techy guys can help!

I have a Time 7321 laptop that I wish to give to my 11 year old son as a first laptop, I have tried to restore it back to man/default by using the 3 discs that came with the laptop: disk 1 of 2 & 2 of 2, also the notebook XP driver cd version 4 along with a floppy disk marked ME,XP notebook boot disk.

My problem is on trying the restore process, which I have done in the past with no problems was going ok for about a minute then stopped with the following message:-

No Bootable cd in atapi cd-rom
booting from removable media
staring windows millenium emergency boot..

This driver is provided by oak technology, inc..
0TI-91X atapi cd-rom device driver, revD91XV352
©copyright oak technology, inc 1987-1997
device name : cdrom
transfer : programmed I/0

A:\1h MSCDEX /d:cdrom /L:X
MSCDEX VERSION 2.25
copyright © microsoft corp. 1986-1995
Drive X:= driver cdrom unit 0

A:\>x:
x:\>restore

cdr101: not ready reading drive x
abort, retry, fail

I then tried it again, by using all 3 disks as mentioned without bootup floppy inserted all that is coming up is:
No bootable cd in atapi
hardisk boot sector invalid
press 'H' to retry hardisk, any other key for floppy

Kept pressing it but to no avail!

Put floppy back in and it went back through the procedure again stopping at the flashing 'A' prompt

I cannot see anything now about MSCDEX, and come to mention nothing now from the very beginning about the original floppy disk content, for that matter, for some reason all that is showing on the screen is what I say below. Maybe do you think the floppy is corrupted for some reason?? if so how would I go about fixing the boot disk back to its original state to be able to get me started to restore.

The Screen displayed the following:-

No bootable cd in ATAPI CD-ROM
Hard disk boot sector invalid
Press 'H' to retry hard disk any other key for floppy
Non system disk -- insert boot disk and press any key
Booting from removable media
starting...

A:\>
A:\> -(flashing prompt)

When I type DIR at the 'A'prompt & press ENTER the following appear:
EGA2,EGA3,KEYB,KEYBOARD,KEYBRD2,KEYBRD3,MODE,COMMAND,DISPLAY,AUTOEXEC,CONFIG
what is does this all mean.

I would be most grateful if anyone could guide me through this procedure.

Sorry to sound frustrated but just want to get it back to man/default status to give to my son!

Kind Regards
Gazzataf

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Hi Gazzataf, welcome to G2G.

Once you are at the A: command prompt, what do you see if you do the following:

dir c: (should be your hard drive)
dir d: (may be your CD drive or a RAM drive)
dir e: (your CD drive if it's not d:)

Sounds like the CD drive is defective and needs to be replaced.

You can try a CD cleaner disc, they are available everywhere, even Walmart (Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, etc.).

Edited by Ztruker, 02 March 2008 - 10:55 AM.

[Ztruker]

Hi Gazzataf, welcome to G2G.

Once you are at the A: command prompt, what do you see if you do the following:

dir c: (should be your hard drive)
dir d: (may be your CD drive or a RAM drive)
dir e: (your CD drive if it's not d:)

Sounds like the CD drive is defective and needs to be replaced.

You can try a CD cleaner disc, they are available everywhere, even Walmart (Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, etc.).

Edited by Ztruker, 02 March 2008 - 10:55 AM.

[Gazzataf]

Hi Ztruker

Thanks for the reply at 'A' prompt I cannot see anything other than what I mentioned earlier if I type as you mention above, they come up as the following:-

bad command or file name or invalid drive specification.

As for it being a defective cd drive I am not sure that this so, I had cleaned the drive earlier, and I also tried my win XP professinal disk for my desk top. That read through it right up to the point of install which obviously I aborted not wanting to cause anymore problems, I just wanted to see if the cd drive was working which I beleive it is.

Regards
Gazzataf

[cmpm]

Searching the net for your specific laptop reveals you have received help from other sources.
Which is fine.
But it would be nice if you would state what you have already tried and not succeeded in accomplishing.

What have you tried from this site that has your laptop files that can be downloaded with a different computer on to floppy or cd media?

http://mtc.mitacserv...leDown2004C.asp

[Gazzataf]

Hi cmpm,

Again thanks for the reply but as you have trawled around the net & found that yes I have tried to source help but seemed to be getting nowhere, and that maybe someone from another forum site with a fresh approach or has come across this particular problem maybe able to help!

I have tried the mitac site as per your link from another earlier contact previously but this was no good or I was unable to trace what is needed at all from the downloads there. as I mentioned my laptop is a time model 7321, I beleive the clone model of the Mitac 7321 model.

I have tried to give as accurate a detail as possible as to my problem, as you can see that by reading my threads.

So any help anyone can give will be gratefully appreciated

Regards

[Ztruker]

Since you were able to boot your desktop XP CD and that works, that tells me that the recovery CD for your laptop is bad (or dirty).

I mean, there aren't a lot of choices here. Either the CD drive is defective which you say is not so as you can boot your XP CD, or the CD itself is defective.

What about trying to boot it in the desktop as a test? Have you tried cleaning the CD disc?

Another possibility is to make a copy of it and try using the copy to install from. Sometimes that will work.

[Gazzataf]

Hi Guys
here is the latest update to what was my problem?

I have just got hold of a windows data recovery boot cd + utilities disk from a friend and have tried this. I went through a lot of the procedures on the disk (not really knowing what to do, but 'hey' what the [bleep] nothing ventured nothing gained) one of them being Norton disk doctor.

After this finished I rebooted the laptop and guess what XP burst back into life at its original state, all program files & folders etc as before my attempt to restore it using the restore disks.

I don't know what the problem was or is for that matter, but I would still like to return it back to manufacturors default state for my son at some time, and hopefully not having to go through all this hassle again.

Anyway I'm still convinced that somewhere along the line, my original boot floppy disk is suspect so was wondering if anyone of you know a site where I can make an original TIME ME XP notebook boot disk floppy from, as I have tried to find it but to no avail or if anyone knows of anyone else who may have a copy of the BOOT DISK I would be grateful.

The original floppy info was e.g.

This driver is provided by oak technology, inc..
0TI-91X atapi cd-rom device driver, revD91XV352
©copyright oak technology, inc 1987-1997
device name : cdrom
transfer : programmed I/0

A:\1h MSCDEX /d:cdrom /L:X
MSCDEX VERSION 2.25
copyright © microsoft corp. 1986-1995
Drive X:= driver cdrom unit 0

Kind Regards
Gazzataf

[happyrock]

another option would be ...let sleeping dogs lie...by creating another user account (has to be a admin account and a different name)...then delete your old account including all your documents...windows will ask when you delete the account...delete everything in the shared folder...then run ccleaner...then defrag the drive and give it to him...if your scared he my find some files he shouldn't see..get Glary Utilities Free here...